Enter the Dagger
by Skittifink Dagger
Summary: Her frigate webbed. Locked by an almost laughable amount of Amarr navy considering the ship she is piloting. Cursing all the way she is dragged out by two burly masked gimps wielding tazers which they do not hesitate to use, until finally she passes out.
1. Chapter 1

"Another spy." I hear them say. "Kill her slow."

Gruff voices, aloof and disinterested.

Amarri scum.

_So, they caught me_, I think. _They can't catch us all._

I can't see for the pain, let alone the blindfold I was given for my execution.

_How merciful you fuckers._

"Wait." Another voice, this time smooth, deep, almost plesant if I didn't know that voice wore a robe, just like the rest of them. "Just one moment." he continues, the rustle of his clothes betrays his proximity, close enough I could grab him were I not bound. "Girl? Can you hear me?"

I spit blood and know it hit him.

"They want to kill you."

For the first time I raise my head and would look into his eyes were mine not bound "They aint the first, nor is they gonna be the last."

"'Are' they, girl. Tsk tsk, grammar my sweet." he takes my chin in his cold, gloved hand and wrenches my blindfold free, I try to turn my head but find it impossible.

Such blue in his eyes, endless blue and depthless black. "You don't want to die here, do you?"

It takes effort but I answer in truth "I'd rather die free than wither as a slave." Truth is I am terrified. No I don't want to die, who does? But I wont live as a coward either.

He lets me go and turns away, he motions a guard and is immediatly obeyed "Free her."

The guard looks to yet another superior who does not meet his gaze.

"I said: Free her." Every move he makes seems scripted, again he turns my way "And give her my ship."

_What in the hell is that bastard playing at?_

Though he could read my thoughts easy as you please "I wonder ..." the sentence remains unfinished, but again he muses "I wonder ..." our eyes again meet in an ever present challange "If you make it out, then you are free."

I'd argue if only out of blind pride, but its true. To be out is to be free.  
I stay passive as my bonds are removed and follow the robed man to a ship. Its not large but it is nimble, I recognise paper thin vunerability on both shield and armor as I view the specs of the little frigate, but then I notice the launchers on that hull. And those launchers are loaded.  
I gasp, despite all my self control. What kind if fool would free a spy and then offer her a fully fitted and loaded stealth bomber?  
Regaining control of my body language, for all that I would take out that ship and flee the system one fact remains.

"I can't fly a .."

"You have to little spy." he again grasps my face for all that I am a good inch taller than him I feel small as a child to that gaze "Get out. Then, if you wish, come back to me. I am not unreasonable and can provide you with so very much more than _they_ ever could." I turn my eyes away not wanting to look at his, but he turns me back "You are worth so much more than a throw-away scout."

I stumble over my own tounge a few times before I form the sentence "What's it they call you?"

"What do they call you?" he retorts.

"Skitt. I'm called Skittifink."

"Skittifink." perhaps its the timbre of his voice, or the accent but he makes the name sound so much better. Not like that of a salvage rat turned spy by sheer nescessity "Those of my order are known by the title 'Dagger' seek me by that name and I will find you when you are ready."

....

Years have passed and the scars of chafing bonds have long faded but that one remains well etched in my memory.  
All Minmatar bloodlines and Corporations rejected me when I returned.  
I had no valuable information to bribe my way back into their trust. They knew I flew an Amarri boat out of enemy territory, they knew I was captured.  
Knew, even before I did, that I had been compromised.

A man cannot serve two masters. Nor can woman.

And when my master from birth cast me out I returned to my adoptive one.

I knew I could be killed on returning, I knew that I could just be enslaved and forgotten amongst the masses.

But I did go back.

Back to Amarr.

Back to the sation where I knew I was interrogated.

Docked and disembarked like I own the place, confidence, I learned opens so many doors.

No cuffs this time, no tazers.

A few guards this time, armed, but that was to be expected

"Why have you come here, rebel?" One addresses me.

I meet his eyes and smile knowing in that instance that I'm in the right place, as he visibly pales at my words "Dagger is expecting me."


	2. Chapter 2

He looked older – still those depth-less eyes drew me in just like I remembered them to.  
"Welcome back."

What could I say? What would be appropriate? I was never one for words so I keep silent, momentarily lowering my gaze and nodding once at him. _That ought to do._

He looks past me to the undocking area "Where is the bomber I gave you?"

I clear my throat "Confiscated. Soon as I go' back to Heimatar base."

"Freely giving information now, are we?"

"I owe them nothin'."

"I see." again the calculating movements, the sheer confidence that oozed from him "Here is not the place nor is this the time for such conversations. For certain that ..." he indicated the scrapped together frigate and if on cue the engine began leaking oil "... cannot have been a pleasant ride."  
Funny how if you build something no matter how basic you always feel the need to defend it "She might only be wings and an afterburner but she flies"

He smiled briefly "Indeed. I cannot ague with that. After all it brought you here." He turned and motioned me to follow "I shall show you your rooms and where you can wash up. Do not worry about your possessions I have one of my men watching your ship. No-one shall touch it until you return."

I thought the corridors of the station would echo, like mt home station. Booted feet on metal gangplanks, raised voices to combat the stomping of booted feet and the echoing of every note off bare metal. But this was vastly different, all white, gold, indigo and violet. Colors so bright I hadn't known they existed until then, I found I had to pause and touch them. Such vibrant tones, so delicately carved. And the silence, the silence was so new to me. So calming.

In the back of my mind I could hear my fathers rough voice "They'll enchant ya wi' their gold n' shit. What that shit good fo' anyways! Can't eat it, can't build with it..." he could go on and on.

But that was in the past. I had no father now.

My eyes moved from the gold gilt molding to my own fingernails, the ever present grime etched beneath them, cuts and scars from fighting or scrapping.

"Keep up. I don't want you getting lost in here."

My stride was longer and I caught up easily.

"Your main specialty is frigate skirmishing is it not?"

"I flown transport afore. Fly anythin' you put me in given an hour. Seem to have a knack for it. Frigs just all I could afford get out here."

"Did you go back directly after leaving here last time?" He gently pushed a button on the elevator and within moments the doors opened, he punched in a seven digit passcode and pushed the button corresponding level 144.

"No."

"No?"

He waited for more, but how do you go telling a man that you took his boat for a joyride though nullsec? _Best to be blunt I suppose._

"I took yo' boat on a joyride out the Coil."

At that his eyebrows raised "Serpents coil, eh? Get far?"

"Got in and got out, was plenty for me."

He smiled a broad white smile "Got out... with empty launchers and full cargo?"

No way could I suppress a smirk, those bombs were the best thing I had ever fired.

"Did anyone see you?"

"Not 'till I wanted 'em to. Then it were too late anyways."

We shared the moment in smirking silence, Dagger was once a raider too I reckoned, else he would chide me no doubt.

The elevator slowed and silently opened to the predestined level, no gold here, no bright colors.

The general style of the station, I surmised, would have to be very much standard but having no other Amarr station experience I had nothing to compare it to.

Here the lighting was soft and the flooring had a slight give, no more than the barest of a millimetre but enough that walking was comfortable and silent.

There were two dark bowls, covered over with fine mesh and coals burning incense, so subtle it was barley noticeable but not smelling the general sterile recycled station air it made the room all that much more pleasant to be in.

"This is our base of operations, Skittifink." Until that moment I did not know how much I longed to hear him say my name again, all those years, that accent, that timbre, his eyes all of him hypnotic.

" I would ask that you not leave this level until further arrangements are made – you are still officially a spy to the station master but I will convince him otherwise. You seem surprised. Yes, there are people that I serve and must answer to. But do not concern yourself with that. At least not yet. Follow me."

Dark columns hid the metal framework of the structure, no bare metal here. As I walked again behind him the walls glittered at me, but only one certain angles and only subtly.

Turning a corner a couple occupied the corridor, both stopped their chattering and stood to one side at the open palmed gesture of Dagger. He stopped before them "Loitering? I hope you two are not planning another prank on Sacha."

Both lowered their gaze.

"Hrmm. Well don't put her in hospital again. We do need her you know." he waved a hand dismissively and both briskly walked to the entry hall and vanished down a secondary corridor.

"I will introduce you to the rest of your new brethren later."

"Brethren?"

"A sort of group. A specialized and elite group that stick close together. Like family."

The corridor was only a short one considering the station size and was lined with doors.

Some steps down the corridor they came to a halt."This will be yours." he waved a hand at a motion sensor and the door gently opened.

"In you go. Wash up and get changed. I will have someone come for you in a few hours. Oh, and Skittifink?"

I turned from the doorway to face him.

"Welcome home." again he waved his gloved hand and the door closed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I had left all of my possessions on the little frigate. I was ready to leave it all behind. Not that I ever had much to begin with.  
My hip-bag with a few tools and ornaments that I had found or made, and a backpack that had a spare set of clothing and a data pad.

Nothing else. Possessions weigh you down and make you weak. The more you have the more you can loose and the more it all means to you then all the more can it be used against you.  
Or so I had always been taught.  
This place was so alien, so very odd, so very clean and white that I had trouble picturing myself in it. I shrugged off my jacket and tossed it in the direction of a padded chair to one side of my room. The coarse weave fabric hit the thing but didn't fall as I wanted and it ended up on the floor.  
If it were my old den I would not have cared, not at all, my jacket could lie for days in the crumpled heaps of spare trousers, propaganda magazines, beer cans or whatever was on my floor. Here though, here I surprised myself my getting up and picking the jacket off the floor. With my hand I brushed at the synthetic coarse weave fabric and brushed a goodly amount of black dust off the back.  
It fell and mingled with the fibers of the deep red carpet at my feet. I note the small rubbish can to my left, I consider a while, this jacket has been my companion for a long, long while. Whilst tattered and beyond repair I love the thing, the white reflectors on the shoulders and elbow are more dull with age than dust but the still contrast sharply to the black of the fabric.  
The collar still has half of its stitched insignia, of the writing only torn reminders remain. I finger the holes where once stitching has sat "S 12" it read, Skirmish 12. By the time I had left Heimatar there had been a good 30 further Skirmish Crews. This jacket was something more than warmth in the cold of the 'verse. This Jacket was as close as it was going to get to a medal in minmatar society. This jacket marked me out as one that had fought and lived. Be it through luck, skill, fate, a higher power or who cares what. I lived and those that were in my sights did not.

The momentary pride shook me awake. I was in an Amaari tower. I had come here voluntarily.  
Why?  
Because I was captured.  
But not this time. Why was I here?  
Out of spite?  
I was abandoned?  
For all that I fought and lived, I was abandoned.  
Childish, my father would call it, a damn waste of life if you don't go dyin' for a cause.  
And once I believed it too.  
Once I would sit beside my da looking up to the stars, couting the gate fires, listening to the stories of Minmatar freedom fighters, noble deeds and selfless sacrifice.  
Something to aspire to I once thought.  
Were we really such a proud people, or were we just stubborn savages?

Again I eye the spotless steel of the waste basket chute. If I was ready to leave it all behind then I must do so entirely, that means that I retrieve nothing from the frigate and remove myself from all that I once was.  
I open the lid and peer down into the darkness of the chute. It would run the length of the station before ending in an incinerator chamber that got flamed at the end of every day-cycle. I raised the jacket above the lid, all I need do now was let go.  
And I did.  
In a blink I spread my fingers wide, the orange of my nail paint ending the length of each digit, the heavy hooded collar brushing once on my thumb before the entire weight fell from my grip.  
There was a clunk when the plastic spine padding hit a turn and then nothing. I had said good-bye to any rank I once may once have had.

My 'rooms' consisted of three comfortably sized chambers. The first entrance room which led to a bedroom containing an actual bed covered in the finest white fabric I could have ever imagined. I bent to touch the weave and was appalled that I left three smudgy fingerprints. I backed away conscious of anything else I touched.  
The third room had a large depression in the floor seemingly designed to be filled with water and bathe in, a half-disk in silver that opened in the direction of the tub the source of the water.  
I touched it in the center and a stream of clear water began spilling out and running down the wall and into the bath. Sliding the door shut I stripped and stepped into the clear stream.

It was cool, but not unpleasantly so. I found a small white square of a lathering agent that cleaned the grime off my forearms that I habitually rolled sleeves over and up to my elbows. Anyone that has ever seen a man get his hand caught in a piston-box will know why.  
I coated my face and hair also in the cleaning agent and rinsed it with h2o so clear I could not have imagined myself drinking such a thing let alone using it to wash myself.  
Back in Heimatar station the recycled water was grey but clean and tasted of chemicals, to clean your body with it was forbidden. Washing in water was a luxury only planet-siders were allowed. Far too precious of a commodity to be wasted in a station.  
We cleaned, of course, but with an alcohol based rubbing solution.  
When the water drained away it left a layer of grime where the level had set. I could always clean it later.  
Looking to the highly polished metal that was my mirror I saw for the first time in years my own reflection. The crude red face tattoos a mark of defiance I could hardly wash away, for all that the soap had cleaned my hair it was far from brushable from years of rubbing the strands against each other creating thick locks of felt. The scar on my forehead running right eyebrow to the start of my hairline - a reminder of my abandonment.  
The man that raised me struck me when I pleaded to be brought back home, that I was no spy.  
It was not the fist that broke the skin but the wall behind me when the impact spun me into it. I had never been a delicate thing but that stung.  
More than in flesh.  
Far, far more.  
That stung my very core.  
For all that I was wing command in skirmish 12 , for all that I lost none of those in my care, for all that we took down that slaver, for all that we rescued hundreds.  
For all that, such was to be my reward?

My upper lip quivered.  
Its in the past girl! Let it go. Its all done and gone.  
Done and gone.  
"Welcome home" Dagger had said. This was my home now. Nothing before mattered. I would do as Dagger asked because he was the one, the most unlikely one that aided me, that didn't see my only value as a thing to be raised to fight and fired at your enemies like so much ammunition.

That was truly why I was here.


End file.
